Today, Vice Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), along with all Democratic members of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter to Chairman Trey Gowdy requesting a hearing with Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to investigate the misleading testimony he and other Trump Administration officials provided to Congress regarding the decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
“In sworn testimony before multiple Committees of Congress in both the House and Senate, Secretary Ross and other Commerce Department officials repeatedly claimed that they decided to add a citizenship question to the Census ‘solely’ in response to a request from the Department of Justice (DOJ),” the Members wrote. “Based on newly released documents, it now appears that this testimony was highly misleading.”
Contrary to his previous testimony, Secretary Ross wrote in a March 2018 supplemental memo that discussions about the addition of a citizenship question began shortly after he became Secretary and reflected an idea that “other senior Administration officials had previously raised.” In addition, recently released documents now demonstrate that the addition of the citizenship question was initiated by the Commerce Department and coordinated with then-White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon long before the December 2017 request from Department of Justice.
“These newly released documents indicate that the Trump Administration’s purported rationale for adding a citizenship question to the Census—that it would help enforce the Voting Rights Act—was nothing but a pretext,” the Members wrote. “These new documents also indicate that Secretary Ross, Mr. Comstock, and Mr. Gore misled Congress in their sworn testimony—claiming that the Department of Commerce was merely responding passively to a request from DOJ when in fact Secretary Ross and his aides concealed their extensive coordination over many months with the White House, the Attorney General, and others to orchestrate that very request.”
“For all of these reasons, we request that you convene a hearing as soon as possible so our Committee may obtain testimony from Secretary Ross regarding these newly released documents. Secretary Ross swore an oath to testify truthfully to our Committee, and he must be held accountable,” the Members concluded.
The full letter follows and is available here.
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